


Time After Time

by AngryCakeChids



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Angst, F/M, More emphasis on the sheer amount of suffering, Not emphasis on Ginaka, Time Loop AU, War 2.0
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 13:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6155665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngryCakeChids/pseuds/AngryCakeChids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time After Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheGreatCatsby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreatCatsby/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Catsby! H A V E P A I N  
> (I did this one day early because I'm going to be too busy to post it on your actual birthday)  
> (lmao I'm a bad friend)

As they took off into the dusky sky, a stony silence settled over the inhabitants of the helicopter which was headed to the hyperoats factory.

 _It wouldn’t have been this quiet if Kagari was around_ , Akane thought to herself, but quickly shrugged that thought off. Not everybody knew the truth behind Kagari’s disappearance, and he had been classed as a runaway, but Akane doubted that anyone in Division One had seriously bought that. Next to her, Ginoza’s body was taut as a wire, and even she knew when to spot the first signs of anxiety. A small part of her was tempted to just reach out and touch his arm in a gesture of some small comfort, but she resisted it, unsure of whether she could explain herself if he asked her why. Perhaps a short smile, or uttered, empty assurances of ‘relax’ and ‘it’ll be okay’ would suffice. Even so, she just sat there, and stared at the window, seemingly ignoring her senior Inspector sat beside her.

Even when they went their separate ways within the factory, she said nothing, and watched him go. Only a few minutes later, she let herself have a moment to chastise herself that she should have done, before leading Yayoi down a dark corridor, hunting Makishima Shougo, Dominator always in hand. From the way she was gripping it, it felt more like a stress ball than a weapon to defend herself if needed. To her, it made no sense they were using Dominators to apprehend Makishima – after all, they had no effect. Still, she quelled all fears and pushed on, regardless.

-

Unbeknownst to the junior Inspector, Ginoza’s nerves could have fared better with any sort of encouragement, any at all, even meaningless ones. His mind was nothing but a mess of anxiety and fury, with rational thought barely struggling to fight through it all. For whatever reason, an innate part of him just _knew_ something was going to go awry, but he simply put this idea down and soldiered on. Running away with his tail between his legs wasn’t an option. He nearly smirked at the thought – _what was he, a dog?_ He glared at the eldest enforcer in front of him. _Never._

Ginoza hated everything about this situation. The fact that his best friend had abandoned him again (had Ginoza himself made the same mistake twice? What a fool he’d been) and now he was stuck with the very thing he wanted to avoid. Even so, he wanted to reach out to his father, maybe tell him the fears nagging at the back of his mind, seek out some form of comfort. Instead, he said absolutely nothing at all, and reminded himself sternly that he hated this man, that he had to utterly despise the man who he once called a father. Once and never again.

When he looked behind him for his last remaining ray of hope, she’d vanished into the shadows that seemed to be clinging to everything he encountered nowadays. Would she ever return from them, just like his last partner hadn’t?

-

Why did time never run smoothly? Why did some parts fade from existence in his mind, and why did others became all too vivid? Maybe Ginoza really was going insane. Maybe this was what it meant to become a latent criminal. Ginoza forgot the last ten minutes, carefully stepping around the building hunting their criminal, peering around corners, wondering if they’d be unlucky enough to be the ones to face him. And what if they met Kougami there, and had to judge him?

None of that mattered as the world exploded into pain and red and countless shades of grey as he felt something impossibly heavy slam into him at inhuman levels. Before he allowed an all-encompassing darkness to completely consuming, the gruff familiar voice of his father lulled him away from it, and he raised misted-over eyes to find him, just like a little lost child. But this moment of near silent understanding was gone as soon as it came, and all that registered in Ginoza’s pain-riddled mind was the pure white murderer standing behind his father.

“Look out! Behind you!” He barely recognized the voice as his own.

For a few moments, all that existed was the dance of death that Makishima and his father were partaking in, and his pitiful struggles to escape the thing keeping him captive. However, every movement brought him closer and closer to that jet black precipice that lingered above him, and every single breath he took seemed to slice his throat. It hurt, and if he was that way inclined, he would have cried. But he didn’t, and continued to struggle for all that it was worth… which wasn’t much, if he was being honest. Yet once again that darkness was interrupted by light, but this light didn’t instil him with the hope that Akane’s did. This one filled him with dread.

Because some part of him, inexplicably, knew what was going to happen.

“Don’t let that man go at any cost! You’re a detective – do your duty!” his voice was harsh, like his throat and tongue were made of smashed glass. Because if his father did not fulfil this duty he’d given himself nearly three decades in the past, then he’d stop pursuing it in less than three minutes. And Ginoza couldn’t live with himself he let that happen. Call it something illogical like déjà vu, but that was what this entire situation felt like to Ginoza Nobuchika.

Too quickly, all too quickly, that light expanded and consumed everything in a roar of fury. And when he opened them again, his life was in tatters. With the last remaining ounce of his strength and a short burst of anger, he pulled himself from underneath the crates with an agonized screech that was borderline animalistic. Underneath him, his legs felt ready to give away at any moment. But by some miracle, he managed to stagger over to his father, the trauma fully setting in and making a mess of what remained of his mind.

“Dad! Dad!” he could only cry out like a lost child, and when it boiled down to it, maybe that was all he was. Finally, Inspector Ginoza Nobuchika caught up, and his sorrow was fuelled by misdirected rage. “You idiot!” _Even in his final moments, here you are, berating him, hating him. How awful are you?_ His hands trembled, and his sobs were muted, and he barely registered the gunshots behind him as Kougami emerged into view. With one tortured expression at the bloodied pair, he had gone again, leaving Ginoza behind so easily. _But he didn’t care about Kougami anymore… right?_ “Why did you let that man go? You’re a detective, aren’t you?!” his rage persisted, even though tears were beginning to fall.

At that, the old man chuckled, reaching his remaining, bloodied hand to touch his son’s face. “I’m not fit to be called a detective,” his eyes cracked open, and stared at his son’s face, as if memorizing it. “Look at those eyes. They’re exactly the same as mine were when I was young.”

His screams died along with his father.

-

His eyes opened to a familiar scene, and it took him a moment to figure out that he was sat in the helicopter on the way to the hyperoats factory. For a few moments, his eyes scanned the area around him wildly to make sure he was real. Next to him, Tsunemori was looking at him with wide, worried eyes, and after a moment passed, she asked: “Mr. Ginoza, are you okay?” He stared at her in stunned silence, immensely grateful that she was the one he woke up next to.

Then, his mind caught up with him, and he nodded quickly. “Yes, I’m quite alright,” he responded stiffly, turning away. “Just resting myself before the mission.”

“I see,” she commented, a tone in her voice suggesting that she didn’t quite believe him. “It hardly looked peaceful, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“It was fine,” he snapped, and when she flinched, he nearly said sorry. But he didn’t. He should tell her about his dream, about his fears, but he didn’t.

“Did you have a nightmare?” she asked him, quietly so that the two enforcers accompanying them didn’t overhear.

“Of course I didn’t.” She looked at him as if to say _really?_ Thankfully, she didn’t press the issue much further.

When they split up for a second chance, he nearly reached out for her, but instead he stuck his arms at his side and walked swiftly off, leaving her and Kunizuka alone to pursue Makishima, knowing full well that they wouldn’t be the ones to find him. His father followed his footsteps, not saying a word, his attempts at humour silenced by his son’s never-ending supply of glares. Ginoza told himself over and over to stop this hateful façade, but he just… couldn’t. He couldn’t drop nearly twenty years of this façade over one, stupid nightmare; his brain was likely feeding off his fears and giving them form.

As he walked into the room which had become his father’s early grave, he was half-expecting the crates to come crashing down once more and causing chaos, but they didn’t. He walked ahead, proudly, not feeling the tripwire tug at his ankle – which was definitely a good sign. Well, of course he wouldn’t feel the tripwire – because there was no tripwire. He nearly sighed in relief, before mentally scolding himself. He always raged at Masaoka and Kougami for deluding themselves, and here he was, doing the same.

_Did that make him exactly like them, then?_

No, that was a silly thought.

All was going smoothly until he heard a disgustingly familiar noise behind him, like claws made of iron ripping through the walls, like a beast of the darkness with killing intent looming above him. Or rather, looming above his father, and even as he span around and called out a short warning of _“Move!”_ Yet too late, far too late, and his father and he found themselves in each other’s shoes, and Ginoza felt a disgusting sense of horror pooling in the pit of his stomach as he spun around to feel the cool kiss of a blade on his cheek, and it took him just a few seconds to remember that Makishima was lying in wait, ready to kill the both of them for personal satisfaction.

“Nobuchika! Hang on! I’ll be right there!” His father seemed to be forcing the words out of his mouth, and Ginoza knew the feeling. Still, his father’s words stunned him; he must be in agony, surely, but he was still trying to comfort his estranged son, who wanted nothing to do with him. A fool, a fool through and through, Ginoza thought bitterly before a fist swung into his teeth. Automatically his eyes widened, and he stumbled backwards, barely keeping upright; was his fate inescapable?

Almost cruelly, Makishima stopped, lit dynamite stick in hand, a glint in his eye which told Ginoza everything. _He knows precisely what’s going on here. He just wants to see me suffer._

Gracefully, in a perfect arc, his arm raised above his head, and Ginoza felt the feeling drain out of his body, like his feet were glued to the floor, and he could only look in horror at his father, still dragging himself from under the crates. Too late, all too late, Ginoza realised with his heart dropping. And when the explosion blew up his entire world again, he felt as though he was made of ice, or of glass, cold and unfeeling. He didn’t feel the arm wrap around his neck and cut off his oxygen to supply. Didn’t feel it or didn’t care? It was hard to tell at this point. However, he did hear the harsh whisper, filled with unbidden laughter, spoken directly into his ear.

“ _Our wills and fates do so contrary run, that our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own_. Do you know what that means, Inspector Ginoza?” The way he said his name had Ginoza shivering, but Ginoza simply shook his head. Who cared about Makishima’s whims right now? He just had to get over to his father as soon as he could, but how could he, when he was like this? “It means fate isn’t meant to be controlled, and that you aren’t in control of it at all.”

Then, he fell silent for a brief moment, and Ginoza embraced himself for the inevitable. “Look at your father, Ginoza. Look at his corpse,” the words cut into him more than any blade could. “Did he fight his fate? Then why should you?”

Ginoza didn’t want to answer; it hurt. But he had to find the truth, even now; that was his role as a detective. “Is it you doing this?”

“How straightforward of you, detective,” Makishima commented, almost idly. “I hope you remember this conversation, this world, and remember that this is the last thing you saw of it. This is the where the world ends.”

Before he could say much else, a splitting pain in the side of his face dragged a tortured scream out of him, unbidden, unwanted, a sign of weakness. His body jolting uncontrollably from the sudden surge of agony, he managed to blink away what tears were in his eye to find the source. It was pretty obvious, considering it was literally in front of his face. Makishima, slowly, tantalizingly slowly, pulled his switchblade from the mess he’d once called his right eye. “You shouldn’t be so upset, Inspector. After all, you’ve never liked your eyes, right?” Ginoza didn’t care about Makishima’s taunts, but the pain screaming through his eye. When Makishima dropped him, he didn’t bother sticking his arms out to catch his fall, his hands too busy staunching the swath of blood pouring down his cheek.

With every heartbeat, the pain simply increased, sending shooting pains from his face to nearly everywhere in his body; but the pain made his heart rate soar, and he was trapped in a vicious cycle. It wasn’t the type of pain that one could ignore, but just feel glad when it was all over. The one thing that did distract him from his business of dying was the sound of a single bullet ringing out, barely missing Makishima. Ridiculously, Ginoza smiled, in spite of himself. Kougami would save him, just like he’d always done, right? _But still… the one time you had to miss, it was at a time like this_? He could have laughed, semi-delirious from the agony. Through the veil of blood and tears clouding his vision, he could see the retreating form of Makishima, like a sickening ghost.

“Kou…Kougami!” he managed to choke out, like he’d done at school all those years ago, and with one hand, reached out. “Hel…Help m-”

“I’m sorry, Gino.”

All he saw was Kougami raise the gun, a silent apology in his eyes, and the sound of a gunshot echoing in his skull.

-

**How many times had he died?**

**How many times had his dad died?**

_Too many, too many to count._

**How many times had _Makishima_ killed them?**

**How many times had _Kougami_ killed them?**

_Too many, far, far, too many._

“You’ve been out of it recently.” Of course it was her that brings him to reality - it was always her, isn’t it? Ginoza had stopped caring about saving himself from the wheels of fate, and sickeningly, he’d stopped caring about his father too – but saying that, he was never supposed to care in the first place. In fact, the only reason he continued to push his way through this endless experience through the hyperoats factory was her.

Only Makishima and he seemed to be aware of the looping days, and he had no idea how. It didn’t make any logical sense, and he hadn’t had time to simply look it up or give it adequate research. But something about Akane seemed different each time, but for some reason or another, Ginoza couldn’t tell what it was. But each time, quiet words of encouragement, hopeful smiles and stolen seconds of just being together was enough to force him through whatever horrors fate had in store, seemingly getting worse each time.

“Oh, have I?” he questioned absent-mindedly. “I’ve been busy with this case. It’s a confusing one to say the least.”

“Yes, you have,” she nodded, looking out of the helicopter window, as if watching the world go by, and they fell into a comfortable silence, until she spoke up again. “I think that if you want to solve this _case_ , you have to do something a little different.”

“Different?” She’d piqued his interest, as she’d done time and time over. “What do you mean?”

She turned away from the window then and seemed to frown as if pondering his statement. “Mr. Ginoza, have you ever watched a movie more than once?”

“I don’t really watch movies all that often,” he confessed honestly. “What of it?”

“Well, wouldn’t you get tired of it, eventually?” she leant back in her chair and sighed. “Just watching the same thing over and over and over again? Wouldn’t you just watch another movie?”

“So you’re suggesting that I approach this case from a different angle?” She nodded firmly, shortly. “But the method I’ve been using to the case is the one I’ve always used. It’s kept my hue clear thus far; wouldn’t changing my tack now endanger my hue?”

“Has it really been keeping your Psycho-Pass unclouded?” her tone was innocent on the surface, but there was something hidden underneath it, and he’d never figure out what. Yet she was right on the money; every passing world had left him a broken man, a latent criminal. He hated himself for it. Almost instantaneously she retracted it. “No disrespect to you or anything, but if you’re doing something that’s clearly not working, wouldn’t it be beneficial to try something else?”

Ginoza didn’t give her an answer and simply looked at her curiously. “Tsunemori… are you aware of what’s going on?” If he said it flat out and he was wrong, she would think he’d gone completely off the deep end; yet a small part of him knew that no matter what his hue was like, she’d accept him. She’d always been that way with everyone, and for whatever reason, he’d always thought it was a fatal flaw. Now? Not so much.

“Of course I know what’s going on!” she smiled, with a small, disbelieving shake of her head, and Ginoza’s heart soared, filled with an uplifting hope he hadn’t experienced in this day without end. “I’ve been working on this case alongside you, haven’t I?” At that, his heart shrivelled and sunk again, and he said nothing. Well, for what it was worth, at least she was alive at the end of every world he passed through. That alone was a blessing. After another silence, Akane spoke up again, her tone very business-like, professional, and he couldn’t help but marvel at how much she’d grown. “I can sense that you pairing up with Masaoka isn’t going to work well, so how about we let Masaoka and Kunizuka search for Kougami?”

“Can we trust Enforcers on their own? There’s a possibility they could run away.”

“Would Kunizuka leave Shion? Would Masaoka leave _you_?” He noted how she didn’t say again, but either way, she was right again, and he hated and loved that about her. Hated it because he felt like a fool, and he wasn’t a fool. He wasn’t. _He wasn’t_. **He wasn’t**.

“No,” he admitted finally, and she seemed fully aware that she’d trapped him. “But—”

“You’re not going to give me that ‘ _trust is for fools_ ’ nonsense, are you?”

“It’s not nonsense!” he protested weakly, but she gave him a knowing look.

“So you don’t trust me?”

“That’s nonsense.” The words were out before he could stop them. “Wait, I meant –”

“I understand,” she touched his arm in a comforting gesture, before letting it fall again, but Ginoza held onto the feeling it instilled in him for a few seconds longer. “I want to come with you. I can’t think of any place safer.”

 _I can_ , thought Ginoza gloomily, _and that’s about three miles away from my general vicinity_. As selfish as it was, he didn’t want her to be in that safe zone at all, and close to him. If she wasn’t, Ginoza knew that he’d wind up losing his mind again. And maybe she could offer a fresh perspective that he and Masaoka had insofar been unable to see. So when they split up with the Enforcers (with him strictly reminding them of what the consequences would be should they make a break for it), he didn’t feel so scared of the incoming disaster.

He should have been.

When he entered the room that had become his grave, over and over and over again, he was expecting the worst instantaneously, and automatically he began to shuffle. To her credit, Akane didn’t try and force him to progress, and stood a little ways in front of him, staring at him. “Mr. Ginoza?” her voice was filled with concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” he snapped, almost crabbily. “It’s just that -” he broke off in an exasperated sigh. “Can I tell you something? It might make me sound… deranged, to say the least.”

“Try me,” she had that glint in her eye, almost playful, and reminded him strongly of Kagari. The two of them had been good friends, hadn’t they?

“What if I said that today was yesterday, but yesterday was also today, and that tomorrow will be today and yesterday?” He knew that he wasn’t making much sense.

“I would say that you’d probably need to get more sleep,” Akane laughed, almost a little nervously, “or more coffee, since us Inspectors hardly have the luxury of a regular sleep cycle.” He spared her a wan smile, but didn’t do much to cheer him up.

“It’s just that I’ve been here before.”

“In the hyperoats factory?”

“No. Here. Exactly here. At this time. In this exact situation.” She looked at him with some muted expectancy in her eyes. “Like time travel, or a bad dream, or a combination of the two, I don’t know. I know that I’m not making a lot of sense.” _I should probably stop talking right now._

“You sound quite serious,” Akane rubbed her head with her hand. “If I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you were trying to pull some kind of trick on me, but you’re not like that. Do you mean it?”

 _Yes, yes, I do, and I’m scared out of my mind,_ he wanted to say. “Please don’t put me in therapy,” he said instead, and she laughed at that.

“I won’t,” she looked at him in that curious way of hers again, and gingerly, she took her hand in her own. “It’s fine. Whatever you think will happen now, I won’t let it. It’s going to be alright.” Stupidly, dumbly, he followed her, their fingers linked together, and it did little to ease his nerves. However, a small part of him was clinging to whatever faith he could get his hands on, and he believed her.

How foolish.

He didn’t want to walk behind her; they were equals, as she’d pointed out to him after returning from Saiga Jouji’s home with Kougami. If he was really the detective he thought himself to be, he should have known this right from the very beginning. Yet the Nobuchika back then was angry at everything, especially at her, because she had hope and he didn’t, and she was getting better whilst he was getting worse. Once, it sickened him, and now he just felt grateful.

Too sudden, all too quickly for either of them to realise, a force greater than the two of them combined wrenched them apart far too easily, and he felt the rush of frozen fear flush throughout his body. “Akane!” But her eyes were filled with even larger fear, even larger concern, even larger sorrow than he’d ever be able to feel. However, in just a few seconds, his mind caught up with his body, and a strangled cry got stuck in his throat; the crates that his ruined his life the first time around had ruined him once more because of his own naivety.

“Ginoza!” she cried, dismayed, before crashing to her knees, attempting to lift the crates crushing him. “Just hold on, I’ll help you out.” As much as she’d like to believe that she was as physically strong as she was trying to make out she was, he knew the chances of either one of them budging these metal containers an inch was fantastical.

“Stop, just… stop,” he sounded tired, and whilst he wanting nothing more than to scream – because the pain never got any easier to bear – what good would it do? He didn’t want to make Akane suffer as much as he was doing. He shouldn’t have brought her here at all. “You have to get out of here, Tsunemori.”

“Leave? Don’t be ridiculous!” she sounded angry.

“You’ll die if you stay!” he was angry now, but not at her.

“And you’ll die if I don’t!” she snapped in retaliation.

And of course, there he was in all of his glory, the merciless angel of death. “Tsunemori, run! Just run!” his voice sounded wild, panicked, and desperate. But oh too late, she turned around to briefly see a flash of white – pure, brilliant white – before she was dragged to her feet by her hair, and she let out a short exclamation of pain, but she still glared at Makishima with more than vehemence in his eyes.

“You’ve tried to change the rules to this never-ending game life,” Makishima’s voice sounded lazy, bored, as if he’d grown tired of this situation. And Ginoza knew full well that Makishima killed all who bored him. But at the very least, this change in personnel had come as a surprise.

What didn’t come as a surprise was the gunshot that Ginoza had grown so accustomed to; whenever he heard one, all he could think of was Kougami, and his past with Kougami that didn’t seem to matter to his former partner anymore. It also meant that Ginoza’s end was quickly coming up over the horizon, and this nightmare would start all over again.

_Right out of one nightmare and straight into another._

“Ah, Kougami Shinya, it is good to see you!” Makishima sounded joyous again, and Ginoza figured out why. To him, Ginoza was the old toy, used and abused beyond it being fun anymore, but Kougami was new, exciting, and less predictable than Ginoza.

“Yeah, wish I could say the same thing,” his partner’s gruff voice replied from outside of his peripheral vision. “Put the Inspector down.”

Makishima’s face had something hidden in it, and Ginoza didn’t like it, not one bit, and despite the shooting pains it brought, he struggled against the crate, trying to escape it. All he had to do was reach Akane. And then he’d… and then he’d _what_? The situation was hopeless, and he could have laughed at how foolish he was being. Eyes shaking, he tried to look up at Akane, to tell her he was sorry without using words, and she had the courage to smile at him in a final assurance that things would work out. An arm slid around Akane’s throat, constricting it, but not choking her. At least, not yet.

“I thought that I should leave such a task to you, Kougami Shinya,” he smiled, raising Akane in front of his body, so that her feet were barely scraping the floor. That didn’t stop her struggling, to her credit. “Now, are you going to uphold justice and do what you came here to do?”

Kougami snarled at him and raised the gun once more; there was a moment’s hesitation in his movements, Ginoza noted, and realised why. Makishima was baiting him and using Akane as a human shield.

 _No, Kou. Don’t do it. Don’t you dare!_ He wanted to yell or lash out in frustration, but he could do none.

“After all, only you can judge me,” Makishima continued. “You are aware that the system you protect is imperfect. That it cannot judge me, with so much blood on my hands.”

Kougami didn’t fire the gun, but he didn’t lower it, either.

“Blood that belongs to your loved ones. That will belong to your loved ones.”

That’s when the gun fired, almost on impulse, and even Kougami looked shocked, as if his fingers had acted on their own. And a shot fired without much thought was evidently going to miss its target. Yet for someone as skilled as Kougami, it was still incredibly close. He probably aimed it for Makishima’s chest, and it came close, oh, so tantalizingly close.

But instead, it had severely grazed Akane’s neck, and she crumpled when Makishima dropped her, before running away. Kougami didn’t even spare the two Inspectors a look back, nor was there any apology. As they vanished, swallowed up like a pair of thieves in the night, Ginoza emerged like a broken bird from under the crates, and staggered over to Akane. He heard the shallow rattles of dying breaths in her chest, and the tears he thought he could no longer shed spilled. She cracked open her eyes just a fraction, that same hopeful smile lodged on her face.

“Why are you crying?” she asked, her voice soft.

“Why do you think I’m crying, idiot?!” he was bitter and angry at Makishima, at Kougami, at whoever was doing this.

“Because you think you won’t see me again.”

“Th-That’s because I won’t!”

“ _What if I said that today was yesterday, but yesterday was also today, and that tomorrow will be today and yesterday?_ ” she recited after him. “I’ll see you next time, won’t I?”

“But you’ll just die over and over and over again!”

“How exciting,” she smiled, and her eyes closing. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, see you soon.”


End file.
